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n2doc's Journal
Scientists reveal the secret behind Mercury’s unusually dark surface
By Rachel Feltman
March 7 at 2:55 PM
Like a goth kid from the '90s, Mercury has an unusually dark, crusty exterior. Last year, scientists proposed that the strange darkness could be explained by carbon dust shed during comet impacts. Now, using data from the final orbits of NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, researchers led by Patrick Peplowski of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory say they've confirmed that carbon is to blame.
But instead of carbon shed from cometary encounters, they say, it might be the remains of Mercury's ancient surface – a layer of the planet buried by other materials over the course of billions of years. Comets hurtling into Mercury's surface may have actually unearthed dark carbon that was already there.
The new findings were published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Mercury has always seemed darker than it should be. Because the planet has no atmosphere to speak of — and is the closest thing to the sun, where solar winds are violent and space debris impacts are most common — it's expected to acquire a lot of tiny iron particles, which are known to absorb light and make planets look darker. The moon gets its dark appearance from an abundance of iron. But even though Mercury has a lower concentration of iron than the moon, it absorbs more light.
more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/03/07/scientists-reveal-the-secret-behind-mercurys-unusually-dark-surface/
The Bernie blackout is real, and it’s happening at the Providence Journal
he media blackout on U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders is real, and it’s happening with our home state newspaper. Please read further for the gruesome details.
On Saturday, March 5, 2016, Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton in Democratic caucuses by voting margins of 35% in Kansas and 14% in Nebraska. He also lost by a margin of 48% in the Louisiana primary.
In the Providence Sunday Journal, there is not ONE headline mentioning any of these facts nor one article dedicated to the Democratic presidential race. A review of today’s “A” section reveals the following articles related to the 2016 presidential race:
much more
http://www.rifuture.org/the-bernie-blackout-is-real-and-its-happening-at-the-providence-journal.html
Bernie within MOE of Clinton in Michigan
DEMOCRATIC RACE CLOSE
Contact(s): Matt Grossmann , Andy Henion
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are basically neck and neck and Donald Trump leads among likely Republican voters in Michigan's March 8 presidential primary, according to a new Michigan State University survey.
Results from the winter State of the State Survey released by the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research show competitive races. With 147 Democratic delegates and 59 Republican delegates, Michigan is the second-biggest prize to date, after Texas.
In the Democratic race, Clinton leads Sanders 51.9 percent to 46.9 percent, which is well within the margin of error. On the GOP side, Trump leads with 36.1 percent, followed by Ted Cruz at 19.5 percent, Marco Rubio at 18.1 percent and John Kasich at 8.9 percent.
"Well-known candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump developed early leads in their primary races. Bernie Sanders has gained ground on Clinton, but the Republican opposition to Trump has yet to consolidate behind a clear alternative," said Matt Grossmann, IPPSR director and political scientist.
more
http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2016/trump-leads-gop-field-in-michigan-democratic-race-close/?utm_campaign=media-pitch&utm_medium=email
Alexander Litvinenko and the most radioactive towel in history
by Luke Harding
It was a warm autumn day when the two Russian visitors arrived in Grosvenor Street, central London. Their names were Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun; the date was 16 October 2006. They had arrived that morning from Moscow carrying something that British customs failed to detect. Not drugs or large sums of cash, but something so otherworldly, it had never been seen before in the UK.
The substance was polonium, a highly radioactive isotope. It is probably the most toxic poison known to man when swallowed or inhaled – more than 100bn times more deadly than hydrogen cyanide. It had come from a Russian nuclear reactor. The job of Lugovoi and Kovtun was to deploy it. They had come to poison Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian dissident, MI6 employee and Kremlin critic. The visiting killers had no personal grudge against their target. They had been sent by Russia’s FSB spy agency, in an operation likely to have been approved by Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.
Scotland Yard has never established how the assassins transported the polonium. The amounts were very small and easy to disguise. There are several possibilities: a container with the poison administered by a pipette-style dropper. Or an aerosol-like spray. Even a modified fountain pen would do the trick. Within its container, the polonium was safe. Out of it, it was highly dangerous. Ingest it, and you were dead.
Lugovoi and Kovtun, it would become apparent, had no idea what they were carrying. Their behaviour in Britain was idiotic, verging on suicidal. Nobody in Moscow appears to have told them Po-210 had intensely radioactive properties. Or that it left a trace – placing them in specific locations and indicating, via telltale alpha-radiation markings, who sat where. It was possible to identify anything and everything these clueless assassins touched.
more
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/06/alexander-litvinenko-and-the-most-radioactive-towel-in-history
Canadian province Ontario plans to trial universal basic income
Source: Independent
Ontario has announced it could soon be sending a monthly cheque to its residents as it plans to launch an experiment testing the basic income concept.
While officials in the Canadian province are yet to release any specific details of the project – including how much will be given to residents who participate – the finance ministry has published a report confirming the government’s intention to roll out the experiment.
The general concept of basic income involves a government handing out a flat-rate income to every single citizen within a country, either by replacing existing benefits or to top them up.
Proponents of the idea say it would save on welfare administration costs, reduce the poverty traps of traditional welfare states, be fair to people who have jobs, and give people more autonomy in general.
Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ontario-to-pilot-a-universal-basic-income-experiment-a6916571.html
GOPer Who Made Muslims Renounce Terrorism Loses Primary By 118 Votes
A Tea Party lawmaker who once demanded Muslim visitors to her Capitol office pledge allegiance to the U.S. and renounce terrorism lost her re-election bid by just over 100 votes this week, The Dallas Morning News reported.
Texas state Rep. Molly White wrote on Facebook that "after prayers and conversations" with supporters, she plans to request a recount of Tuesday's Republican primary race, which she lost by just 118 votes.
White refused to apologize last year after her anti-Muslim Facebook post about a Muslim lobbying day went viral.
"I did leave an Israeli flag on the reception desk in my office with instructions to staff to ask representatives from the Muslim community to renounce Islamic terrorist groups and publicly announce allegiance to America and our laws," she wrote in the 2015 post.
"We will see how long they stay in my office," she also wrote.
As a freshman lawmaker, White was also named the worst Texas House member on LGBT issues, a distinction she bragged about on Facebook.
more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rep-molly-white-loses-re-election-muslims
Good Riddance. Makes me wonder though about who beat her. Could they be even nuttier?
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